NigerianFLIGHTDECK Travel and Business Reportage 
SECRETARY General of Association of Nigerian Aviation Professionals (ANAP), Comrade Abdulrasaq Saidu has called on government to commence total overhaul of aviation security across airports stating that it also needs to halt recruitment of security and fire rescue personnel exercise in Kaduna asking for immediate profiling of existing personnel by the government.
Last Friday, following a security breach involving an Azman Air aircraft, 5N-HAI at the holding area of the Murtala Muhammed Airport by a Nigerien national identified as Usman Adamu, the nation was thrown into outrage and is causing reactions.
Speaking in an interview in Lagos over the weekend, Com. Saidu lamented that those in authorities have not learned various calls and warnings from unions to recruit aviation security and fire personnel in a transparent way.
The ANAP scribe who raised alarm on the ongoing recruitment of security and fire rescue personnel exercise in Kaduna called for a halt while all serving aviation security personnel must be immediately profiled by the government.
According to him, the process of recruitment has been bastardized without following the International Civil Aviation Organisation requirements on the exercise.
Saidu noted that the country would have been thrown into mourning assuming the suspect was on a suicide mission and called for serious caution.
While commending the Managing Director of FAAN for admitting their lapses, Saidu said all those involved should be properly interrogated and investigated.”Everybody on duty that very day should explain how and what happened and must be dealt with accordingly. It is a challenge and a bad signal to the International community”
He noted that security lapses at the airport gradually started eroding in the past four years when the process of recruiting Avsec was politicised with politicians taking over recruitment without regards to the operations, safety and security and standards.
He said the incident has justified unions position on recruitment into sensitive positions in aviation parastatals adding unfit candidates over the age of 30 years were being presently recruited in Kaduna saying it was not in the interest of the industry but that of politicians.
Saidu warned politicians not to allow politics to override safety in the employment of security personnel in the aviation sector saying that the former minister, Hadi Sirika misplaced priority by putting concession above safety.
He condemned the plan by Sirika saying that the terminal building of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport will be demolished warning that nothing of such should be allowed to happen and will be highly opposed by all the unions.
Saidu said so many things went wrong under the former minister assuring workers that the union will restrict further unhealthy policies from ministers
There should be at least two levels of security surveillance on the Air-side, AVSEC and Airfield ops, the question is are they equipped to carry out this surveillance? do they have functional vehicles lets not go into CCTV along the perimeter fence yet, when was the last NCAA aerodrome standards audit of the airport? FAAN as it is currently, is top heavy with countless managers GMs AGM just name it hiding in their various office that is if they come to work at all and very few personnel out in the field there.most of their budget is spent on non operational issues like travel and tours and seminars attended by about to retire GMs, this things happen all over the world but not at the scale and frequency in Nigerian Airports few weeks ago someone sneaked into a Kenya Airways flight wheel well, the Kenyan Airport authority came out with full confidence that the individual was a certified employee as they were very sure there was no way an outsider not certified could have made it to the AOA, this brings us back to Airport management which is a professional pursuit requiring years of training and experience has now been turned to a Political box of chocolate, few weeks ago an Airline Captain with a dodgy career was appointed to a very sensitive position in FAAN, flying an Aircraft and managing an Airport are two very separate things just like Car manufacturers and professional drivers have little say in road construction and highway management advisory if at all any so if your top management are still undergoing OJT the field guys that need the leadership direction and supervision would have a field day doing nothing.